Budget DSLR? The Canon XSI / 450D In Depth

In the below video I thoroughly discuss a great starter camera for those looking to get into DSLR photography on a budget. The Canon Rebel XSi or 450D is a 12.1 camera that runs about $150 to $200 for the body used. I cover its operation and menu in detail. I also recommend picking up a $25 3rd party Battery Grip for your XSI. It will double the battery life, let you hold the camera comfortably during portrait shooting, and just make it look more pro.

42 Comments

Damian Dodd

shanethebarroomhero

Thank u for the tips, i just recently purchased a used XSI with 8000 clicks, and got a NIB EFS 55-250 f/4-5.6 IS II. I really don’t know wtf i’m doing but videos like this do help and i appreciate the time u put in this to help other people. I do alot of field herping (i’m a reptile geek lol) and wondered if my mothers old canon lenses from the late 80’s would work. I know she paid 1500 back then for some of the better lenses and thought it would be fun to try them out. What do u think?

shanethebarroomhero

Sam Hus

Damian Dodd

@shanethebarroomhero Thanks for watching! Grats on the XSI. Great budget starter Canon. Check out the FD to EOS adapters on Amazon. The ones with a glass element help with infinity focus. As long as they don’t have fog or fungus inside, old film lenses are a great budget option for lenses.

Scottishplaneman

Ralph Miller III

Great video. What is the largest capacity SDHC card I can use with the Xsi? I’ve had my Xsi for a 3 years now and it’s
way overdue for me to take the training wheels (green square) off and learn what everything mean and their effects. As for the firmware, ver 1.1.0 is the latest.

Damian Dodd

@Ralph Miller The XSI accepts SDHC cards so in theory. up to a 256gb if you want to blow $500. I didn’t see any limitations reported googling. But really, 32 gig SDHCs are plenty large. There’s the camp of not storing a years worth of photos on a card and having it go bad. So I’d rather have a few smaller cards than one massive expensive one. Yes, leave the green square! Start with AV mode. It’s like auto mode only you set the f-stop or how blurry background is. Come check out my blog for help.

Damian Dodd

@Ralph Miller Get a class 10 card. From there they have different Read/Write speeds. But that’s for high burst and video. The cheap ones are like 14 meg/sec write speed. You want at least 30 meg/sec write for video, which the XSI doesn’t shoot, but good to know if you upgrade.

Matt Williams

Buying one of these very soon, and I’ve took upon your recommendation to buy the battery grip alongside it. Very informative and professional video, I am a beginner to SLR’s and you’ve made me feel kinda confident with the basics! Thank you!

Eilie Richmond

What is the first of the canon rebel series that shoots video? This is my first dslr so I don’t really mind if it doesn’t have video but I would love to be reassured that if I’m carrying around my camera I can take a video of something